Big Paycheck or Service? Students Are Put to Test

The New York Times ^ | June 23, 2008 | SARA RIMER

[Amelia]

...The professor, Howard Gardner, hopes the seminars will encourage more students to consider public service and other careers beyond the consulting and financial jobs that he says are almost the automatic next step for so many graduates of top colleges.

“Is this what a Harvard education is for?” asked Professor Gardner, who is teaching the seminars at Harvard, Amherst and Colby with colleagues. “Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?”

[Amelia]

Also mentions Teach for America, and says that 9% of Harvard seniors applied for the program this year but only 37 were accepted - it doesn't say whether that was all or just a small fraction of the applicants.

[yldstrk]

It is a public service to open a small business and provide something the consumer needs at a resonable price.

[Steely Tom]

How much does Harvard pay Gardner?

[DManA]

A big paycheck means you are creating big wealth. That is as much a service to the country as anything else.

[Southerngl]

Um, why would someone spend $150,000 on an education for public service?

Not to downplay other colleges, but seriously, why pay for top of the line education to have any payback at all? Other than a government job with a questionable pension?

[Little Ray]

As my father-in-law demonstrates, Public “Service” has its benefits. Work for the gub’mint for 20 years, get to the top rungs and retire with a fat pension. He’s doin’ well.

Of course a lot of it is also good planning on his part, too.

[Mr. K]

Yes! Go to college so you can be a govt. wonk!

[napscoordinator]

The professor, Howard Gardner, hopes the seminars will encourage more students to consider public service

What in the World would a Harvard Grad want to work in public service for? What a waste of talent plus the loans that he/she has would most likely prohibit any public service due to dismal pay. There are plenty of other universities that help facilitate kids who want to go into the public sector business. Harvard and Ivy leagues need to concentrate on professional careers like medicine, law, and science areas. Leave public service jobs to the state school graduates.
Yes I am a state university graduate...FSU!!!

[JimRed]

“Is this what a Harvard education indoctrination is for?” asked Professor Gardner... Corrected his question.

[Tolkien]

Then who will pay back the massive student loans?

[Reaganomical]

Both! Government contracting allows you to collect some damn sizeable paychecks while (expensively) providing valuable (expensive) services to the United States of America.

We need a civil service draft. Iraq and Afghanistan don’t need any more guns; the men and women of our armed forces have those bases covered. What we do need are linguists, police officers and a crap-ton of soft skills to transition those countries over.

Heh. It’ll never happen, but it’s nice to imagine. A war that would actually require everyone to contribute? In ways where they’ll never have to fire a shot? Hmm.

[Amelia]

Um, why would someone spend $150,000 on an education for public service?

I would think that it would be on the Biblical principle of "to whom much is given, much is required", and the idea that those with great abilities or who have had "more breaks" than others ought to give back to society.

[Amelia]

Harvard and Ivy leagues need to concentrate on professional careers like medicine, law, and science areas.

According to the article, they aren't doing that; they're going to Wall Street and managing hedge funds.

Of course, some of their grads are running for president. ;-)

[Lou L]

A big paycheck means you are creating big wealth. That is as much a service to the country as anything else.

And just as much, you're probably paying a good bit in taxes, which fund the insatiable spending habits of big government.

[Amelia]

We need a civil service draft. Iraq and Afghanistan don’t need any more guns; the men and women of our armed forces have those bases covered. What we do need are linguists, police officers and a crap-ton of soft skills to transition those countries over.

I think that sounds like a great idea. There actually are a lot of service opportunities for students interested in them, but I have never heard of that sort of program.

A war that would actually require everyone to contribute?

It's another subject for another thread, but I think that was perhaps this administration's greatest PR failure on the WOT - not finding a way for everyone to contribute and thus feel a part of it.

[BikerJoe]

And just as much, you're probably paying a good bit in taxes, which fund the insatiable spending habits of big government.

P.J. O'Rourke said it best:

Any rich man does more for society than all the jerks pasting ‘Visualize World Peace’ bumper stickers on their cars. The worst leech of a merger and acquisitions lawyer making $500,000 a year will, even if he cheats on his taxes, put $100,000 into the public coffers. That’s $100,000 worth of education, charity or US Marines.

[Tax-chick]

I dispute the premise that becoming a nanny-state socialist bureaucrat constitutes “giving back.”

[SumProVita]

Drafting doesn’t work. People need to apply to give service voluntarily.

[MEGoody]

I would think that it would be on the Biblical principle of "to whom much is given, much is required", and the idea that those with great abilities or who have had "more breaks" than others ought to give back to society.

Good point, but there are ways to give back to society besides working as a social worker. There are plenty of volunteer opportunities. And, if you make a lot of money, you have more to donate to worthy charities.

[Sacajaweau]

Yeh...Bill Gates should have gone into public service...And the government would own the internet...

[Mrs. Ranger]

Gee Howard, why does it have to be one or the other? Why can’t people do both? Oh, that’s right. Some already do. ;)

Of all people, it’s highly amusing to me that Howard Gardner is “thinking inside of the box”. ;)

[Will88]

I think there’s some misrepresentation going on here. The Ivy League schools aren’t just the place for future Wall Streeters, but also for future Justice Department attorneys and employees for most federal government bureaucracies.

Those schools have long been the most common pathway to high government positions, or so called “service.”

Of course, there’s a lot of revolving door action between DC and Wall Street and large corporations, also.

[antiRepublicrat]

How about a Northern Exposure set up? The government pays for the Ivy League education and in return gets several years of committed public service at “living wage” pay. This is the same thing we do with the military academies and ROTC, just not military.

[alyse615]

US News says there are 6,715 undergrads at Harvard, so that’s roughly 1800 seniors. 9% would be around 160, so 37 spots would be pretty competitive.

[Reaganomical]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and_without_mandatory_military_service

It’s worked for Israel, but it was kind of born out of necessity on their part. I agree that drafting doesn’t really work in military terms - unless you need a massive number of boots on the ground, no matter what - but shunting kids off for a year after college doing much-needed work for their country would be a great way for them to be invested in how government works and how they can contribute.

People do need to apply to give service voluntarily. Unfortunately, people tend to be armchair patriots, too damn lazy or too wrapped up in their own material lives to give a crap.

Eh, as long as it’s someone else’s kids fighting our wars and keeping our government running. How American!

[cricket]

Imagine what they could accomplish. Harvard disciples 'teaching' America. Surely an ideological MO embedded in here somewhere. . .

Of course, we have only to look at Michele and Barack as role models for what can be accomplished through public service. /sarc/off. . .

[SumProVita]

“...but shunting kids off for a year after college doing much-needed work for their country would be a great way for them to be invested in how government works and how they can contribute.”

In principle, I agree with you but, if government is administering such a program, I have great reservations as to its effectiveness.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Are Ivy League schools simply becoming another selecting mechanism for Wall Street?

This Marxist lost me on this sentence. Typical University demagoguery, demonizing the evils of Capitalism. It's all about serving the greater cause of Socialism. Too bad that far more charity and beneficial programs come from a Capitalistic society, because the extreme wealth they generate provides a charitable spirit and extra funding for doing good for one's fellow Man. In their puny minds it only generates hate and greed and a cynical, hateful, self-centered society. Will they ever figure it out?

[cricket]

Of course, a Harvard Academic suggesting 'Military Service' would invite a 'lightening bolt' from Liberal heaven. . .

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

I believe that Lightening Bolt would have to come UP from “Liberal Heaven”.

[Amelia]

The government pays for the Ivy League education and in return gets several years of committed public service at “living wage” pay. This is the same thing we do with the military academies and ROTC, just not military.

That sounds like a great idea to me.

We have more students going to the military academies than to Ivies, but that might change if they had the financial aid.

[Condor51]

In an interview this spring, Dr. Faust held up as a model Teach for America, the nonprofit program that has recruited large numbers of students at top colleges to teach in low-income schools for two years. With 9 percent of Harvard’s senior class applying to Teach for America this year, 37 students made the cut.

Audit Faults an Education Nonprofit
A federal audit of Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to teach in low-income schools, has found that the organization did not properly account for $775,000 in government money it says it spent for summer training sessions and related purposes.

~~ snip~~ In their inquiry, government auditors scrutinized $1.5 million in Teach for America spending, of a total of $6 million the group received in three government grants from 2003 through 2005. The group was unable to provide documents to support roughly half its claimed spending, $775,000 of the $1.5 million sampled, the report said.

Ironically, both are from the NY Slimes. The Audit piece ran June 7, 2008. Oh, and back on May 8, the NY Slimes wrote a glowing editorial on Teach for America. (Maybe the Slimes has multiple personality disorder? - good, bad, good, etc.)

[Amelia]

Great find!!

[Condor51]

** Great find! **

Thanks. And it was pretty easy.

The NY Slimes had Teach for America linked to its old articles. One click and wha-la, there it all was ;-)

[cricket]

I believe that Lightening Bolt would have to come UP from “Liberal Heaven”.

LOL...and good point. OTOH. . there is that 'upside/down' compromised universe that Libs live in; where 'down' IS 'up'. . .

But yes. . .Reasonably speaking; that bolt should be coming from 'down under'. . .